


RENEWED STRUGGLES 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF 



The National Civil-Service Reform League 



AT INDIANAPOLIS, IND. 



DECEMBER 14, 1899, 

BY THE PRESIDENT, 

HON. CARL SCHURZ 



PUBLISHED FOR THE 

NATIONAL CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE, 

1899. 



Publications of the National Civil-Service Reform League 

Proceedings at the Annual Meeting of the National Civil-Ser- 
vice Reform league, 1884, with address of the President, George 
William Curtis. Per copy, 8 cts. 
The same, with address of the President, for '85, »86, »87. 
>91, '92, '93, '94 '95, '96, »97, »98 and '99, Per copy, 8 cts. 
Civil-Service Reform under the present National Administration. 

By George William Curtis. (Address of 1885. ) 
The Situation. By George William Curtis. (Address of 1886. ) 
Party and Patronage. By George William Curtis. (Address of 1892.) 
Civil-Service Reform and Democracy. By Carl Schurr. (Address 
of 1893.) 

The Necessity and Progress of Civil-Service Reform. By Carl 

Scuurz. (Address of 1894. ) 

Congress and the Spoils System. By Carl Schurz. (Address of 1895.) 
Encouragements and Warnings. By Carl Schurz. (Address of 1896.) 
The Democracy of the Merit System. By Carl Schurz. (Ad- 
dress of 1897.) 

A Review of the Year. By Carl Schurz. (Address of 1898.) 

Renewed Struggles. By Carl Schurz. (Address of 1899.) 

Civil Service Reform as a Moral Question. By Charles J. Bonaparte* 

(i 890.) 
The Influence of the Spoils Idea upon the Government of 

American Cities. By Herbert Welsh. (1894.) 
The Reform of the Consular Service. By Oscar S, Straus. (1894.) 
The Appointment and Tenure of Postmasters. By R. H. Dana. 

( I895-) 
Civil Service Reform and Municipal Government. Two 

papers, by Albert Shaw and Horace E. Deming. (1897.) 
The Republican Party and Civil-Service Reform. By Henry 

Hitchcock. (1897.) 
The Democratic Party and Civil-Service Reform. By Moorfield 

Storey. (1897.) 
An open Letter to Hon. C. H. Qrosvenor, in reply to recent at- 
tacks on the Civil Service Law and Rules. George McAneny. 

(1897.) 
The Need and Best Means for Providing a Competent and 

Stable Civil Service for Our New Dependencies. By 

Dorman B. Eaton. (1898.) 
Constitution of the National Civil-Servica Reform League. 

Good Government : Official Journal of the National Civil-Service 
Reform League. Published monthly at 54 William St, New York. 
One dollar per year. Ten cents per single copy. 



For other publications, see third page 



RENEWED STRUGGLES 

AN ADDRESS 
DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF 

The National Civil-Service Reform League 

AT INDIANAPOLIS, IND. 

DECEMBER 14, 1899, 




BY THE PRESIDENT, 
/ 

HON. CARL SCHURZ. 



PUBLISHED FOR THE 

NATIONAL CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE, 

1899. 



70306 









RENEWED STRUGGLES. 



An Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the National 
Civil Service Reform League, at Indianapolis, Ind., 
Thursday, December 14th, 18pp. 



By Hon. Carl Schurz. 



THE centennial anniversary of the death of George 
Washington which we observe to-day, cannot but 
be full of solemn admonition to every American. It has 
always seemed to me that the greatest historic value of 
Washington's career to the American people consisted 
not so much in the battles he fought and in the fortitude 
with which he upheld the cause of his country during 
the darkest days of the revolutionary war, as in the fact 
that as the first President of the United States he set up 
at the very beginning of our republican government a 
standard of wisdom, public virtue, and patriotism which 
has been, and will always remain, to his successors in the 
presidency as well as to all men in public power the 
surest guide as to the principles to be followed, the mo- 
tives to be obeyed, and the public ends to be pursued. 
His wisdom was so unfailing that during the past cen- 
tury of our history this republic achieved its best suc- 
cesses as it walked in the path of his precepts, and it 
suffered its failures as it strayed away from that path. 
His sense of public duty — the duty of serving the true 
interests of his country as he understood them — was so 
genuine, strong, and courageous, that no adverse current 
of opinion, no fear of personal unpopularity, could shake 



it. He was not without party feeling, but party was 
never anything more to him than a mere instrumentality 
for serving the public good. Nothing could have been 
farther from his purpose than to make the public service 
a pasture for personal favorites or an engine for party 
warfare. He was the very embodiment of the principle 
that public office is a public trust; and it is one of the 
greatest inspirations of our work that we are conscious 
of endeavoring to make the public service what he de- 
signed it to be. And from his lofty example we should 
learn that steadfastness of purpose which shrinks from 
no duty however arduous or unpleasing. Let us con- 
template that which confronts us to-day. 

The National Civil Service Reform League was 
founded to discuss the subject of civil service reform to 
the end of winning for it the support of public opinion ; 
to promote the enactment of reform legislation by Con- 
gress, by the State Legislatures, and by Municipal govern- 
ments, and finally to watch the enforcement of civil 
service laws and to keep the public truthfully informed 
thereon. For the performance of these duties it is 
essential that the League should be a non-partisan 
body; and I may truly affirm that it has faithfully and 
conscientiously maintained its non-partisan character. 
There have always been among its members Republi- 
cans, and Democrats, and Independents, differing in 
their views as to other matters of public interest, while 
agreeing as to the specific purposes of the League. 
Since the enactment of the National civil service law, 
the League has had to observe and criticise the conduct 
of five national administrations, three of which were 
Republican and two Democratic. However widely we 
may, during this period, have differed among ourselves 
as to the tariff, or imperialism, or the relative merits of 
parties or party leaders, we have always been of one 
mind as to the duty of praising in the conduct of each 
administration concerning the public service what was 
to be praised, or of criticising that which may have 
called for censure — praising or blaming in a spirit of 
perfect impartiality, and endeavoring to find and to tell 



the plain truth without the slightest bias of favor or of 
ill-will. 

The faithful performance of the unpleasant part of 
this duty has occasionally drawn upon us, now from 
Democrats and then from Republicans, the charge that 
we were chronic fault-finders — never satisfied, always 
discontented, sometimes even with what was done by 
officials who had themselves been classed among the 
civil service reformers. Those who make this charge 
do not consider that it is the first duty of this League to 
hold up the true standard of civil service reform, and to 
be dissatisfied and to find fault with everything that does 
not come up to that standard. If it failed to do this, it 
would not be true to the reason of its being. It would 
be as flagrantly guilty of dereliction of duty as a police- 
man refusing to repress a breach of the peace that hap- 
pened before his eyes, or to give warning to the occupant 
of a house the street door of which he found open dur- 
ing the night. 

I find myself impelled to make these remarks by the 
unfortunate circumstance that we are now confronted 
by the duty of discussing the attitude of the present 
national administration with regard to civil service re- 
form under especially critical circumstances. As to its 
relations with President McKinley, we all know that this 
League accepted his early promises with warm demonstra- 
tions of confidence, and greeted with expressions of grate- 
ful approval every one of his words or acts that looked like 
a fulfillment of those pledges. It was profuse in its 
commendation of his order of July 27, 1897, concerning 
removals, although that order contained also the exemp- 
tion from the competitive system of a much larger num- 
ber of positions than it added to the classified service; 
and for a long time the League carefully abstained from 
public utterance of its misgivings as to the tendency of 
certain acts of the administration in order to avoid every 
possible injustice to the President's intentions. It lost 
no opportunity for respectfully inviting the President's 
consideration to such violations of the law and the rules 
as came to our notice, appealing to him for such exten- 



sions of the merit system as the public interest seemed 
to ^demand, especially cautioning him against the is- 
suing of the recent civil service order of May 29, 1899, 
while that order was only in contemplation, submitting 
to him urgent arguments against it and predicting what 
the inevitable consequences would be. Thus the League 
has done its full duty to the President. And I may add 
that if, upon mature reconsideration, the President 
should remedy the evils now to be complained of, the 
League would again be as happy to praise as it is now 
reluctant to blame. 

In the meantime, however, we cannot shirk our duty 
of telling with entire candor the truth about this de- 
plorable business, as we understand it. I frankly con- 
fess that on account of my position of antagonism to 
other policies of the administration, the performance of 
my part of that duty is an especially unwelcome task to 
me. I should gladly have left it to some one else, had 
that been possible. I can now only say that I shall con- 
scientiously follow the rule of strictly impartial judg- 
ment as the League has so far always observed it; and 
if I err at all, it will be in the way of moderation of 
statement and charitableness of inference. 

The most conspicuous and important event of the 
last year was the President's civil service order of May 
29. There can be no doubt, for every observing man 
has witnessed the symptoms of it, that this order has 
given an unprecedented impulse of encouragement to 
the reactionary forces working against civil service re- 
form. The spoils politicians and their following hailed 
it with a shout of triumph. Many of them expressed 
the confident hope that now the beginning of the end of 
civil service reform had come. The general expression 
of public opinion through the press, even through not a 
few papers otherwise strongly favorable to the adminis- 
tration, was a decided disapproval of the act. 

This order, however, does not stand as an isolated fact. 
It appears rather as the outgrowth, perhaps as the cul- 
mination, of a general tendency that has in an alarming 
degree manifested itself under the present administra- 



tion outside of the classified service as well as within it. 

Ever since the introduction of the spoils element in 
the federal service members of Congress, Senators as 
well as Representatives, have sought to usurp the con- 
stitutional function of the Executive in the making of 
appointments to office, and this has been one of the 
principal sources of demoralization in our political 
life. Every administration, without distinction of party, 
has yielded more or less to that arrogation of mem- 
bers of Congress, thus fostering the dangerous abuse. 
But, — and here I am stating only a fact so noto- 
rious that nobody will dispute it — never has the Presi- 
dent's constitutional power and responsibility in select- 
ing persons for presidential appointments been so sys- 
tematically surrendered to Senators and Congressional 
delegations as during the last years ; and never has that 
surrender so conspicuously served as an official recog- 
nition and as a£practical support of boss rule in our 
politics. 

As an illustrating instance we may regard the 
changes that have been made in consular positions. 
For a long time the commercial community has by all 
sorts of demonstrations and appeals endeavored to 
induce the government to take that branch of the ser- 
vice out of politics. The administrations preceding this 
have been sadly delinquent in satisfying this wise and 
patriotic demand — a fact which this League from time 
to time brought to the public notice by unsparing criti- 
cism. But a beginning of reform was at least made by 
the last administration, which might have been devel- 
oped into something valuable. Not only has this begin- 
ning, instead of being so developed, been turned into a 
burlesque, but there have been, during the last three 
years, more changes of a political character in the con- 
sular service than during any corresponding period in 
the recent past. 

There has always been since the enactment of the 
civil service law a certain disinclination on the part of 
some officers to comply with the law and the rules as 
well as with the executive orders issued under it, and in 



8 

some instances distinct violations of the law and the 
rules, or acts of disobedience to executive orders have 
gone unpunished. But under former administrations 
some offenders at least were duly disciplined so as to let 
public servants know that they could not with the ex 
pectation of entire impunity treat the civil service law 
with contempt. Now page upon page of the reports of 
the Civil Service Commission has during this administra- 
tion been filled with recitals of such contempt, some of 
a most defiant nature, and again and again has this 
League appealed to the President for the due correction 
of such lawless conduct, and yet in not a single instance 
has the offending officer been removed. On the con- 
trary, a great many of such offences committed before 
the order of May 29th was issued, have been formally 
condoned by that order. 

The platform of the party in power contained the 
solemn pledge that the civil service law should not only 
"be thoroughly and honestly enforced" but also ' 'extended 
wherever practicable." Not a single new branch of the 
service has by this administration been brought under 
the merit system. On the contrary, a very large num- 
ber of clerical appointments were under the war emer- 
gency acts made in Washington alone without examina- 
tion, and in the face of the fact that the Civil Service 
Commission stood prepared to furnish from its eligible 
lists of examined candidates all of the extra force th^t 
might be needed, 

The notorious wastefulness in the taking of the last 
census and the many imperfections of that work had, 
confessedly, in a large measure been owing to the 
organization of the census force on the political spoils 
plan. The enlightened public opinion of the country 
was therefore united in demanding that the taking of the 
census of 1900 should be organized on the basis of the 
merit system wherever practicable. But there are 
under the Census Director appointed by this adminis- 
tration, 2,500 clerks to be employed, and they, as well 
as the rest of the force, are to be appointed on .he 
direct nomination by Congressmen. What kind of 



material is furnished by such nominations appears from 
a recent complaint of the Census Director reported in 
the press : ' ' They cannot spell and they cannot do 
ordinary arithmetic. Fifty per cent, fail, and they fail 
because they cannot divide 100,000 by 4,038 ; that is 
they cannot get a correct result." And such men are 
urged for appointment by political influence. They 
would never have dared to apply under a competitive 
system. The pass examinations instituted by the Di- 
rector will, as they always do, serve, not to secure the 
selection of the fittest persons, but only to eliminate the 
most incapable. This is common experience. 

It is true, the war emergency appointments, as well 
as those in the Census Office, were excepted from the 
operation of the civil service rules by the legislative 
action of Congress. But it is also true that in neither 
case the Executive made the slightest attempt, either 
by official recommendation to Congress or otherwise, to 
bring about the " extension" of the civil service law 
over those employments, in accordance with the pledge 
of the Republican platform. On the contrary, whatever 
intervention there was by Administration officials, went 
distinctly in the opposite direction. 

It was under such circumstances that the President 
issued his civil service order of May 29. That order 
withdrew from the civil service rules thousands of posi- 
tions — a much larger number than preceding rumors 
had led us to apprehend. By extending the facilities of 
arbitrary transfer from lower to higher positions, by 
making possible, and thus encouraging, party reprisals 
on a great scale with each change of administration 
through ex -parte re- examinations of removals for 
cause without limit of time, by enlarging the power 
of making temporary employments permanent, and even 
by materially weakening the President's order of July 
27, 1897, concerning removals, which at the time we 
praised so highly, it has opened new opportunities for 
circumventing the civil service law. I need not go into 
detail, for the matter has been well elucidated by the inter- 
esting public correspondence between the Secretary of 



the Treasury and Mr. McAneny, the Secretary of the 
League, which took place some time ago, as well as by 
various special reports submitted at this meeting of the 
League. 

But the significance of the President's order is not 
determined by the number and individual importance of 
the places excluded from the competitive system. It 
consists still more in the circumstance that the solemn 
pledge of the party in power that ' * that the civil service 
law shall be thoroughly and honestly enforced and ex- 
tended wherever practicable," and the President's own 
pledge never to take a ' ' backward step upon this ques- 
tion," were distinctly broken. It consists in the fact, 
that while since the enactment of the civil service law, 
every President made valuable additions to the area of 
the merit syetem, now for the first time, by President 
McKinley's order of May 29th, the area of the merit sys- 
tem has been substantially curtailed. While the action of 
every other President was in the forward direction char- 
acteristic of an advancing movement, President McKin- 
ley's order was the first distinctly backward step indica- 
tive of a generally receding tendency. 

I am aware the originators and the defenders of 
the order claim that it not only was not designed to be a 
backward step; but that it was only better to regulate 
the reformed service, and to insure the permanency of 
the progress hitherto made. I shall not question the 
sincerity of this claim, but only consider its justice and 
pertinence. To judge correctly the ultimate conse- 
quences which such an act will be apt to draw after it, 
the reasons given for it are of the greatest moment. For 
if those reasons were held to be good as to the cases now 
in question, they will also be held to be good in the fu- 
ture as to cases of a similar nature. In this respect noth- 
ing could be more instructive than the public defence 
made of the several provisions of the President's order 
by the Secretary of the Treasury, who stepped forward 
as the main champion of the act and may well be re- 
garded as the administration spokesman. 

Here is an illustration furnished by him. The Presi- 



II 



dent's order takes the "shipping commissioners" from 
under the competitive rule, and confides their appoint- 
ment to the so called discretion of the appointing power. 
I choose this example for first discussion because the 
exemption is in this case comparatively unimportant as 
to the number of positions concerned, and the reason 
given for it seems especially plausible. That reason^ 
in the language of the administration spokesman, is 
that the duties of that office are ' ' quasi- judicial in their 
character, and it is needless to point to the fact that 
an examination will not point out the presence of the 
judicial temperament. " This has a fair sound. But is 
it a good reason for excepting positions of that kind 
from ,-the competitive test ? That an examination will 
not surely " point out the presence of the judicial tem- 
perament " may be admitted. But may not an exami- 
nation demonstrate other capabilities required for the 
discharge of the duties in question, among them a 
knowledge of the things with which the judicial tempera- 
ment will in that office have to deal ? The administra- 
tion spokesman was, perhaps, not aware that in the 
British India services those who wish to be judges in 
India and who need at least as much of the judicial tem- 
perament as our shipping commissioners, have to go 
through the examination mill, and that this is considered 
as one of the peculiar virtues of that system. He may 
also have forgotten that a shipping commissioner ap- 
pointed upon competitive examination will, during his 
term of probation have an opportunity for showing 
whether he has or has not the necessary judicial tempera- 
ment, that, if he has not, he may be dropped, and that, 
as to this matter, the shipping commissioners might, 
therefore, safely have remained in the classified service. 
But let us go further. Since they have been taken 
out of the classified service for such a reason, who is 
there to test the "judicial temperament" of the candi- 
dates ? The Secretary of the Treasury himself cannot 
do it, being occupied with too many other duties. Has 
he, then, any experts on "judicial temperament" at his 
elbow to do it for him ? He himself would smile at the 



12 

suggestion, for he knows as well as we all do, that as 
soon as such places are withdrawn from the protection 
of the merit system, spoils politics reach out for them, 
and they are, in nine cases of ten, demanded by — and I 
regret to say, yielded to — such eminent authorities on 
" judicial temperament" and on other qualifications for 
official usefulness as Boss Piatt in New York, and Boss 
Quay in Pennsylvania. Nobody, however, believes, I 
think, that when such potentates make their selections, 
the "judicial temperament" or other qualifications of 
the candidates for the public service have nearly as much 
weight with them as a promise of efficient service to the 
party machine. 

I shall not deny that in this way now and then a 
man may be put in such an office who has a "judicial 
temperament " as well as other virtues. But considering 
that he has really been selected for other reasons, this 
must be considered a happy accident, which surely 
should not be regarded as justifying the withdrawal of 
such offices from the merit system. Such a good officer 
has hardly got warm in his place when a change of ad- 
ministration occurs and another high authority on judi- 
cial temperament demands and gets that place for 
his man, and then, perhaps, a man that is only a good 
party worker but has no judicial temperament at all. The 
fact remains that, when persons are put into office for 
reasons other than their fitness for the duties to be per- 
formed, the aggregate result will inevitably be a de- 
moralized, wasteful and inefficient service. 

But this is not even the worst aspect of the matter. 
Here we have one of the cases in which the reasons given 
for an act are more injurious than the act itself. It may be 
that the President, exposed to a severe pressure from the 
spoils hunters in his own party, thought that he could 
appease their greed by giving them something and that 
then the pressure would stop. This will turn out to be 
a miscalculation. The giving of something to the spoils 
hunters has never satisfied, but always sharpened their 
appetite. They will be encouraged to demand more 
when those in power show a yielding disposition, and es- 



*3 

pecially when reasons are pointed out to them why they 
may demand more. 

Look from this point of view at the example under 
discussion. I repeat, the exemption of the shipping 
commissioners is, as to their small number, compara- 
tively unimportant. But when the administration tells 
us that they had to be exempted because the required ju- 
dicial temperament cannot be demonstrated by exami- 
nation, the case becomes one of far reaching consequence. 
There is a very large number of positions now under the 
civil service rules, the duties of which are more or less 
quasi-judicial, such as the examiners in the patent office, 
and many division chiefs and high grade clerks in vari- 
ous departments who have to prepare the decision of 
cases. Now if the shipping commissioners must be ex- 
empted from the rules because their judicial tempera- 
ment cannot be demonstrated by examination, although 
examination may demonstrate other required qualifica- 
tions, why should not the other places I have named, be 
exempted for the same reason, thus to be placed within 
the reach of spoils politics ? 

But the question is a still larger one. Everybody knows 
that there is hardly an employment under the govern- 
ment for the perfect discharge of the duties of which 
this or that quality of character or mental habit is not 
desirable, that cannot be demonstrated by examination, 
while other and perhaps more important qualifications 
can be so demonstrated. Now, what would become of 
the whole merit system if we were to admit, as the ad- 
ministration virtually does, that because some qualfica- 
tions cannot be demonstrated, the ascertainment by 
examination of other requirements must be abandoned, 
and the disposition of all those places must therefore be 
yielded to the party magnates as heretofore ? The ad- 
ministration will, no doubt sincerely, say that they did 
not mean it so. But can they deny that by the futile 
reasons assigned for the exemption from the civil ser- 
vice rules of the places mentioned, they have given the 
spoils politicians a very strong encouragement to de- 



14 

mand the exemption of a great many more — and an 
argument sure to turn up some day ? 

Here is another example. In his first defence of the 
President's order the administration spokesman said, 
among other things : ' ' The exceptions in the Alaskan 
service have been made necessary by the great distance 
from Washington and the time consumed in making cer- 
tifications and appointments under civil service regula- 
tions." Again, the number of government places in 
Alaska is small, and in that respect the exception is un- 
important. But if, as the Administration tells us, ' ' the 
exemptions in the Alaskan service have been made 
necessary by the great distance from Washington," will 
not, according to the same authority, the exemption from 
the civil service rules of the colonial service in the 
Philippines, if we are to have that, on account of the 
greater distance be still more "necessary ? " Is not this 
extremely cold comfort to those of our fellow citizens 
who are in favor of a colonial policy, but who justly be- 
lieve that such a policy will inevitably result in disaster 
and disgrace unless carried on under the strictest kind 
of a civil service system ? Has not thus the administra- 
tion furnished a very specious argument to the politi- 
cians who will insist upon making the colonies, if there 
be such, pastures of spoils politics ? And did not the 
administration do this in the face of the fact that, in 
spite of much greater distance from the seat of imperial 
government, England is carrying on in India a most 
elaborate and exacting civil service system to which that 
part of the British Empire owes nearly all it has of good 
government ? 

Still another example — the deputy internal revenue 
collectors, of whom there are a good many, and who are 
officers of great importance, as they have to collect more 
than half of the national revenue. They were put 
under the civil service rules by President Cleveland. 
The spokesman of the present administration has de- 
fended their exemption on various grounds — in the first 
place, because the law vests the appointment of these 
deputies in the collectors, and they were, therefore, 



i ' according to the highest legal opinion the Treasury 
Department could get, illegally classified. " Let us ex- 
amine this. Sec. 3148 of the U. S. Revised Statutes 
provides : ' ' Each collector shall be authorized to appoint 
by an instrument in writing, under his hand, as many 
deputies as he may think proper, to be compensated by 
him for their services ; to revoke any such appointment, 
giving notice thereof as the Commissioner of Internal 
Revenue shall prescribe; and to require and accept 
bonds or other securities from such deputies, etc." The 
question is whether this statute precludes the subjection 
of the deputy internal revenue collectors to the civil ser- 
vice rules. The administration contends on the author- 
ity of ' ' the highest legal opinion the Treasury Depart- 
ment could get," that it does. What was that "highest 
legal opinion " attainable ? I am informed that it was 
not that of the Supreme Court, nor that of any U. S. 
Court, nor even that of the Attorney- General, but sim- 
ply the opinion of Mr. O'Connell, the Solicitor of the 
Treasury, and that he gave that opinion not even in 
writing, but orally in an off-hand way. If this informa- 
tion is correct, then the Administration must admit that 
it is easily satisfied as to the legal merits of a very im- 
portant matter; for on the other side, declaring that 
those positions could be legally classified, there stood 
President Cleveland, who made the order classifying 
them, and who is far from being considered a mean law- 
yer, and also Mr. Conrad, a former Solicitor- General of 
the United States, and Mr. Charles J. Bonaparte, a law- 
yer of high standing in Maryland, and Mr. Moorfield 
Storey, a former president of the American Bar Asso- 
ciation, whose opinions the Administration might have 
read in the report of the Civil Service Commission for 
1896-7. The Commission itself submitted a strong 
argument sustaining the legality of the classification. 

Now I ask in all candor, what will become of the merit 
system in the public service if, when a Solicitor of some 
department says that in his view the classification of a 
certain numerous force of the service is illegal, that 
declaration is at once accepted as ' ' the highest legal 



opinion the department can get," and the President 
thereupon actually exempts that branch of the service 
from the rules ? 

If we take as valid such reasons for curtailing the 
classified service, how long shall we be able to resist the 
spoils- politicians showing us that there are other and far 
more numerous classes of places, the appointment to 
which is by statute vested in certain officers, and which, 
therefore, must be excluded from the merit system ? 
They may even point out to us a statute providing that 
4 4 each head of a department is authorized to employ in 
his department such number of clerks of the several 
classes recognized by law, and such other employees, 
and at such rates of compensation respectively as may 
be appropriated for by Congress from year to year," and 
they may thereupon argue that, the law thus vesting the 
appointment of clerks and other employees in the heads 
of departments, no interference by civil service rules 
with the discretionary power of the heads of depart- 
ments in making such appointments can be legal. And 
I should not at all wonder if one or more department 
solicitors could be found to deliver as their opinion that, 
although the language of one statute may be a little 
more elaborate or stronger than that of the other, their 
legal intent and effect is the same. Such a legal doc- 
trine, applied to all departments, would, of course, 
sweep away at one swoop the whole merit system, root 
and branch; and the Secretary of the Treasury, as a 
friend of civil service reform, would have to find his 
consolation in thinking that this was * ' the highest legal 
opinion the department could get." 

As another reason for exempting the deputy internal 
revenue collectors, the Administration tells us that the 
Civil Service Commission recommended it. So it did, 
after having long and strenuously argued that those offi- 
cers should not be exempted. Why did the Commission 
at last recommend the exemption ? It gave its reason 
in a letter of May 8, 1899, addressed to the President, 
in these words : ' ' The fact that the Internal Revenue 
Bureau continued to claim and exercise the right of Col- 



i7 

lectors to appoint deputies without compliance with the 
civil service act and rules, notwithstanding the argu- 
ments of the Commission to the contrary, was the prin- 
cipal reason for the Commission's recommendation to 
the President on June i, 1898, that these positions be 
included in the list of positions excepted from the re- 
quirement of examination " 

What a state of things this reveals! Here was the 
Civil Service Commission faithfully fighting for the en- 
forcement of the law as it stood; on the other side a 
branch of the government persistently and defiantly 
violating that law, until the Commission, feeling itself 
utterly powerless against the government, at last threw 
up its hands in despair, saying : ' ' Well, rather than have 
the law openly and continually violated under the eyes 
of the government, let the law be modified to suit the 
violators. " And then that so-called ' ' recommendation" 
of the Commission is paraded by the administration as 
justifying the President's order of May 29! 

Consider what a precedent this will be ! It teaches 
the spoilsmen in the public service that they need only 
find some pretext for rebelling against the civil service 
law, and that if they carry on that rebellion with suffic- 
ient boldness and persistency, they will have good 
ground for hoping that for the very reason of their bold 
and persistent lawlessness, the government will com- 
placently revoke the part of the law or of the rules that 
displeases them. A precedent more demoralizing to the 
discipline of the service and subversive of the merit sys- 
tem can hardly be imagined. 

I am not unmindful of what the administration spokes- 
man has said about the peculiar fiduciary relations exist- 
ing between the Collectors of Internal Revenue and 
their deputies, about the responsibility of the Collectors 
for the acts of their subordinates, about the personal 
confidence which should prevail becween them, and so 
on. Now, that certain superior officers bear more or 
less responsibility for the conduct of their subordinates, 
that there are certain subordinate positions of a more 
confidential character than others, and that therefore 



i8 

the superior officers must in such cases have the dis- 
cretionary power to select their subordinates without 
being troubled by any civil service rules, is one of the 
well worn stock arguments of the enemies of civil ser- 
vice reform. There are few positions above the lowest 
clerkships to which this argument may not be more or 
less applied, and to which the spoils politicians do not 
actually apply it. 

Against this permit me a recital of personal experi- 
ence. When, years ago, I became Secretary of the 
Interior, I thought it best not to take a single per- 
son with me into the Department, not even a pri- 
vate and confidential secretary. That private secretary 
I selected from among the force already in the depart- 
ment. I soon found a man of excellent capacity, entire 
trustworthiness and good manners, who at the same 
time had the important advantage of being already 
acquainted with departmental affairs. So much for 
that peculiarly "confidential" position. Now, when 
looking at the papers put before me for my signature — 
papers of importance which I could not possibly study 
in detail — I felt myself as to the discharge of very grave 
responsibilities — much graver than those of an Internal 
Revenue Collector — to an appalling extent at the mercy 
of my subordinates. At the same time I was set upon 
by Senators and Representatives and other political 
magnates, who urgently asked me to fill existing vacan- 
cies, or vacancies to be made by removals, with men 
whom they recommended to me for appointment. Most 
of them demanded places for their favorites for reasons 
which had nothing to do with the public interest. Some 
told me that in my responsible position I must have 
subordinates whom I could trust, and they were 
ready to furnish me just such men. I heard them all 
and concluded that the public interest would be best 
served if the vacant places in my department — fiduciary 
as well as others — were filled on the principles of the 
merit system, and I attempted the introduction of that 
system in the department — imperfectly of course, as I 
had no appropriation for the purpose, and only an im- 



19 

provised and constantly changing machinery, depending 
on clerks whose time was temporarily not fully em- 
ployed, or who were willing to work after office hours. 
I carried this on for four years against the bitterest 
opposition of the patronage mongers high and low, and 
I learned thus from actual practice on that field of very 
complicated duties and heavy responsibilities quite 
thoroughly to appreciate the practical value of the merit 
system in the conduct of the service, and also the true 
nature of the difficulties standing in the way of a full 
development of that system. 

Now, when in discussing this matter anybody in- 
dulges in solemn hints about mysterious things which 
the official mind has to deal with, but which the unoffi- 
cial mind is unable to understand, he cannot make any 
impression upon me. I am familiar with the augur's 
wink and with the smiles that follow it. It is equally 
useless to talk to me about fiduciary or confidential 
positions which should be filled only at the free discre- 
tion of the appointing officer ; ^or I know from abund- 
ant experience that in an overwhelming majority of 
cases free discretion is a myth and that the fiduciary 
appointments are dictated by political influence ; and I 
know also that in a well-regulated civil service with merit 
appointment, merit promotion and merit tenure all those 
so-called extraordinary qualifications for certain posi- 
tions can easily be secured without exposing any of the 
places to the chance of becoming the prey of spoils 
politics. 

In fact, after four years' service, I left the Interior 
Department with the firm conviction that the positions 
in it, and no doubt in all the other departments, would, 
taking the general average, be vastly better filled and 
that the work would be much more efficiently and 
economically done — in one word, that the public interest 
would be much better served, if the whole force in 
and under those departments, without any exception 
worth mentioning, were subjected to the civil service 
rules, including even, if that were possible, the com- 
missioners and assistant commissioners of the different 



20 

bureaus, and in each department at least one perma- 
nent under-Secretary. And the same four years' offi- 
cial experience convinced me that there is only one real 
difficulty obstructing the full development of the merit 
system in our public service — and that is the pressure of 
political influence for patronage, and the lack of resisting 
power among appointing officers to stand firm against 
that pressure. Take away that one difficulty, and all 
your troubles about needed ' ' extraordinary qualifica- 
tions" that cannot be demonstrated by examination, 
and about "fiduciary positions," and about distances 
making the application of the merit system impractica- 
ble, and so on, will at once vanish into nothing. And 
it is the most baneful feature of the President's order 
of May 29 that it so seriously increases that difficulty 
by strengthening the belief of the spoils hunters and 
patronage mongers that neither the pledge of a great 
party to "enforce the civil service law honestly and 
thoroughly, and to extend it wherever practicable," nor 
a President's solemn promise that there shall be "no 
backward step " will hold out against the pressure of 
political influence if that pressure be only persevering 
and defiant. 

You must pardon me for once more referring to my 
personal experience. Having served six years in the 
United States Senate, where, at the beginning at least — 
I was soon cured — I thought I had to do some pat- 
ronage business myself, and where I learned pretty 
thoroughly how that business is usually done by mem- 
bers of Congress, — and having been four years at the 
head of a great government department where I 
learned still more, and having been for seventeen years a 
more or less active member of an association consid- 
ering it its especial duty to study the means by which the 
merit system may be established, perfected, sustained 
and extended, and also the means by which its enemies 
seek to demoralize, to cripple, and finally to destroy 
it, I may, perhaps, without undue assumption pretend 
to some practical knowledge of the subject. And that 
knowledge fully warrants me in saying that if I were in a 



21 

position of power and desired to undermine the merit 
system in the public service with a view to its final 
overthrow, but without proclaiming myself its enemy, 
the things contained in the President's order of May 
29th, together with the reasons given to justify them, 
wouid suggest themselves to me as among the most 
effective shifts to bring about that end. 

In saying this I candidly disclaim the intention of 
insinuating that such was the purpose of the President, 
or that of his official defender in this case, the Secretary 
of the Treasury. On the contrary, I honestly believe 
that they would gladly have carried out the pledge of 
the Republican platform k ' honestly and thoroughly to 
enforce the civil service law and to extend it wherever 
practicable, " co^ld they have done so without encount- 
ering the fierce antagonism of the so-called "practical 
politicians" within their own party. I further believe 
thac in trying to appease that antagonism they would 
have liked to abstain from anything that might serious- 
ly injure the merit system, but that they relied upon 
subordinates to get up suitable amendments to the civil 
service rules and were misled by the advice of those 
subordinates farther than they had originally intended 
to go ; and that finally when the thing was done, and 
met with very severe criticism, not only on the part of 
this League but of public sentiment generally, they tried 
to justify their step, as men who suddenly find them- 
selves in a false position often do, by giving all sorts of 
reasons for their act — reasons probably also suggested 
by their ingenious subordinates — which made the effects 
of their act and their own situation even much worse 
than they otherwise would have been. 

This is my candid belief ; and that belief is not in the 
slightest degree shaken by the statement made by the 
Secretary of the Treasury in his public defense, that 
several of the exemptions were never demanded of him 
by any politicians. No wonder, for the politicians knew 
where they could put in their work much more effect- 
ively below. The real motive power was in any case 
the greed of politicians for patronage and their pressure 



upon the administration. Those who believe this as I 
do, can render the administration, as well as the cause 
of reform, no better service than by laying bare the true 
nature and tendency of what has been done, and by 
expressing at the same time the hope that after a sober 
and careful re- examination of the matter the President 
may see his way clear for retracing his step. After 
such a re-examination he will hardly fail to recognize the 
fact that his order of May 29, with the reasons given for 
it, has been the most hurtful blow civil service reform 
has ever received since the enactment of the law, as the 
reception that order has met with from friend and foe 
must have convinced him that the people generally 
regard it as such, and that subsequent excuses and 
explanations have not altered that judgment. 

Neither can he close his eyes to the fact that encour- 
aged by the general backsliding tendency under his 
administration that culminated in the order of May 29th, 
some of the most conspicuous abuses of the spoils 
system which under his immediate predecessors had 
become much restricted, are now developing new vital- 
ity. It is too notorious to be denied that persons in the 
Federal service have become much more forward again 
in what is called "pernicious partisan activity" than 
they were for many years. During several administra- 
tions, for instance, the business community of New York 
had been accustomed to see the great Custom House of 
that port "out of politics," the Collector of Customs 
devoting himself to his official duties without taking any 
active part in party movements. But now the Collector 
is a prominent figure again in party caucuses and other 
gatherings, and occasionally he finds it even proper to 
cheer his audiences with exhilarating remarks about the 
actual or prospective relaxation of the civil service rules 
by Executive action. Thus the great Custom House of 
New York is out of politics no longer ; and the same 
may be said of other large or small government 
establishments. 

The contemptuously sportive view of the civil service 
law which at present is taken here and there has, of 



tiara 



2 3 

course, been very much encouraged by an opinion de- 
livered by the Comptroller of the Treasury, Mr. R. J. 
Tracewell, as to whether persons shown to have been 
appointed in violation of the civil service rules should 
nevertheless be paid their salaries. The question hav- 
ing been referred to him by the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, Comptroller Tracewell decided that inasmuch as 
the President has, under the law, made the civil service 
rules, if not directly then at least by his approval, he 
could also suspend them or sanction their suspension by 
his agents or subordinate officers ; and that if the 
rules were thus suspended in individual cases by 
the appointment of persons in violation of them, 
the Comptroller has no choice but to accept the 
certificate of appointment as conclusive and to sanc- 
tion the payment of the salaries of the persons so ap- 
pointed. This decision looks like a huge jest at the 
expense of the civil service law ; and we might conclude 
that it was intended as such when we read the following 
sentence which forms part of that important document : 
" If this ruling has a tendency to muddy the stream of 
civil service reform, which should always flow pure and 
clean from its fountain throughout its course, I can only 
answer that it would be as futile for me to attempt with 
my limited jurisdiction to purify this stream, as it would 
be to bail the ocean of its waters with a pint cup." Mr. 
R. J. Tracewell, who owes his appointment as Comp- 
troller not to a civil service examination, but to the 
so-called free discretion of the President, has, it may 
be said by the way, furnished by this elegant sneer 
at civil service reform, in a judicial decision, a fine illus- 
tration of that "judicial temperament" which, ac- 
cording to the Secretary of the Treasury, every officer 
exercising quasi judicial functions must possess, and to 
secure which civil service examinations must be dis- 
carded and the appointing power must be left to make 
its choice with untramelled freedom. I have only to add 
that this decision has been accepted by the administra- 
tion as final, that the persons appointed in proven viola- 
tion of the civil service rules are regularly paid their 



24 

salaries, that in this respect there is no trouble in the 
way of further illegal appointments, and that Mr. 
Tracewell has, after this performance, not been dis- 
turbed in his important position of Comptroller, where 
he continues to enjoy ample opportunity for giving" his 
rare judicial temperament full play. 

It is also a matter of notoriety that the levying of 
assessments upon persons in the Federal service has 
again assumed very formidable dimensions. This abuse, 
it is true, has to some extent existed all the while. 
But this year the public mind was rather seriously 
startled by the unusually defiant boldness with which 
the Republican State Committee of Ohio, the Presi- 
dent's own state, put the Federal service all over the 
country under contribution to its party campaign fund, 
instructing, with rare cynicism, the public servants how 
the penal clauses of the law against assessments could 
be circumvented. This truly remarkable proceeding 
went on without the slightest mark of disapproval on 
the part of those charged with the execution of the 
law, until at last the Civil Service Commission remon- 
strated against it, the immediate result of which 
remonstrance was, according to the press reports, that 
the Republican State Committee of Ohio rushed out 
another call admonishing the Federal officeholders to 
be quick in paying up. In this way an unusually large 
amount of money was obtained from the public servants. 
This is not surprising, for, as everybody acquainted 
with placeholders knows, the member of the classified 
service feels himself no longer secure in his tenure if he 
merely does his duty faithfully and efficiently, but he is 
troubled again by a sense of danger unless he win the 
favor of the party potentates by rendering such political 
service as may be exacted of him. That this danger 
really exists I will not assert. But the feeling of appre- 
hension, created by the things I have been describing, 
very extensively does exist, and it cannot fail to produce 
demoralising effects most hurtful to the service. 

An effort is being made to bring to justice those who 
have violated the law by the levying of assessments in 



2 5 

the case mentioned as well as in another case, on the 
ground of an opinion recently rendered by ex- Senator 
Edmunds, who was the chairman of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee of the Senate which reported the statute in ques- 
tion; and it is hoped that a salutary example will be 
made of the guilty persons. This, if successfully car- 
ried through, would indeed serve to prevent the repeti- 
tion of such glaring excesses in the same line. But much 
more drastic measures on the part of the Administration, 
if it wishes to demonstrate its earnestness as to the main- 
tenance of the merit system, will be required to cure 
that deterioration of the atmosphere in the public service 
which has been brought about by the multiplication of 
places filled by political influence as well as by the im- 
punity with which in so many conspicuous cases the 
rules have been circumvented and the spirit of the law 
has been openly defied — an impunity which but too 
easily is taken for approval. 

In this respect, I must confess, the paragraphs in the 
President's message referring to the civil service, fail 
to afford much comfort, for they may be summed up in 
the one sentence — that everything is now in satisfactory 
condition. We can only hope that the cheerful opti- 
mism betrayed by this utterance will not prevent the 
President from considering worthy of notice the inves- 
tigations made by this League and the resulting reports 
upon the happenings in various branches of the service. 
Those reports, containing not mere theories or infer- 
ences, but facts, may serve to open his eyes to many 
things of which, it must be assumed, he was not aware 
or which, at least, he may not have seen in their true 
character, when he wrote his message, but a thorough ap- 
preciation of which may induce him to apply the appro- 
priate remedies and to retrieve the grievous missteps we 
have now to deplore. 

The picture of the retrograde tendencies in the Fed- 
eral service which my duty to tell the plain truth has 
compelled me to draw, is relieved by some facts of a 
more encouraging nature. In the State of New York a 
distinct advance as to the maintenance as well as the 



26 

further extension of the merit system has been achieved, 
with the valuable aid of Governor Roosevelt, by the 
enactment of a new civil service law. That law not 
only sweeps away the contrivances by whi h the late 
State administration sought to "take the starch out of 
civil service, "but it places the merit system throughout 
on the firm basis of well-ordered regulations, securing 
to it a practicable machinery, and it provides for the ex- 
tension of its operation over the counties, in which it had 
formerly not been in force. Even in the city of New 
York, where the sinister genius of Tammany Hall devotes 
itself with the accustomed zest and skill to the task of cir- 
cumventing the civil service law, and where the local Civil 
Service Reform Association, co-operating with the State 
authorities, has to fight over every foot of ground, many 
valuable successes have been scored — at least in crossing 
iniquitous schemes and in making the ways of the trans- 
gressor duly hard. Also on the other side of the conti- 
nent, in San Francisco, distinct progress has been re- 
corded by the adoption of a city charter providing for 
the introduction of the merit system in the municipal 
service. 

But the fact in which the friend of civil service re- 
form may find the most cheering assurance of the tri- 
umph of his cause in the future, consists in the striking 
evidences of the growth of that cause in the favor of 
public opinion. The time is not far behind us when civil 
service reform was superciliously sniffed at as a whimsi- 
cal notion of some dreamy theorists not to be taken seri- 
ously. Even when after the first attempt at the practical 
introduction of the merit system in the Federal service 
President Grant dropped it again in consequence of the 
refusal of Congress to make any appropriation for its 
support, the people generally accepted the event with 
cool indifference. There were indeed expressions of re- 
gret, but they came only from a comparatively small 
number of citizens who had become especially interested 
in the subject. But when six months ago President 
McKinley's order curtailing the area of the merit system 
appeared, the manifestations of popular disapproval were 



2 7 

far more general and earnest than the originators of the 
measure had expected and than the friends of the merit 
systen had dared to hope. Not even party spirit, usually 
so potent in such cases, was proof against the popular 
feeling of disappointment, not a few journals otherwise 
staunch partisans of the Administration, giving voice 
to that feeling with remarkable emphasis. 

The reason is simple. In President Grant's time 
civil service reform still appeared in this country as a 
new and strange scheme, running in the teeth of the po- 
litical notions and habits of half a century, and clouded 
over by the uncertainties of a doubtful experiment. 
Now it is a stranger no longer. The people have made 
its acquaintance by actual observation. They know that 
it is not an idle fancy, but an eminently sober and prac- 
tical conception ; that its aim is to remedy real evils and 
to produce a real good, by delivering our political life of 
fatally demoralizing influences, and by giving the repub- 
lic efficient, economical, and honest service. They know 
that it pursues this aim by methods which every intelli- 
gent business man standing at the head of a large estab- 
lishment and exposed to constant and promiscuous pres- 
sure for employment would adopt for himself as 
eminently business-like. In one word, they know that 
civil service reform as embodied in the merit system is 
simply the application to the public service of the plain- 
est principles of common sense and common honesty. 
Even its enemies are at heart recognizing its virtues. 

This has become so widely understood by people of 
all classes in all parts of the country, that the propagation 
of correct knowledge of the objects and the means of 
civil service reform is becoming from day to day an 
easier task to the advocates of the merit system. Their 
foremost duty is now to baffle the efforts of the opposing 
forces, which, seeing the futility of attacking civil service 
reform on its general merits, strive to cripple or pervert 
it in the detail of its operation. Those forces consist of 
the small politicians who covet the offices for their per- 
sonal advantage, the political leaders who seek to control 
the offices as party spoil in order to hold together and in- 



28 

crease their following, and the unsteady statesmen in 
power who, while professing, often not without sincerity, 
to be "also" in favor of civil service reform, have indeed 
courage enough to assert their professed principles 
against their party enemies, but not firmness enough 
to maintain them against their party friends. The 
combination of these forces is an old one. It is expert 
in its business, and it will never do to underestimate its 
strength. How formidable it may become, we have in 
these days again had occasion for observing. 

But, however powerful, it is far from being invinci- 
ble. We cannot forget that against the same old com- 
bination the civil service reform movement has won all 
its successes, one after another, during periods of time 
when it was far less intelligently and vigorously sup- 
ported by the public opinion of the country than it is 
to-day. While its friends have recently suffered a griev- 
ous disappointment, they have no reason for being dis- 
couraged. To retrieve the lost ground and to advance 
their cause further toward the final consummation, they 
have only to follow their old course with militant 
courage and constancy ; to watch with keen vigilance 
the happenings in the public concerns ; to gauge every 
measure taken by those in power by the true standard, 
recognizing gladly every step forward, and permitting 
nothing to pass that is not genuine ; to aid the authori- 
ties whenever possible with information and candid 
counsel ; to expose to the public eye the abuses they 
discover, the correction of which is refused ; — in one 
word, to tell the people the truth without favor and 
without fear. A resolute and persevering appeal to 
public opinion, to the good sense and patriotism of such 
a people as ours, will not be in vain. So good a cause, 
supported by dauntless devotion, can never fail. 



Publications of the New York Civil- Service Reform Ass*n 

The Beginning of the Spoils System in the National Govern- 
ment, 1829-30. (Reprinted, by permission from Parton's "Life 
of Andrew Jackson.") Per copy, 5 cts. 

Term and Tenure of Office. By Dorman B. Eaton. Second edition* 
abridged. Per copy, 15 cts. 

Daniel Webster and the Spoils System. An extract from Senator 
Bayard's oration at Dartmouth College, June, 1882. 

Address of Hon. Carl Schurz in opposition to the bill to amend the New 
York Civil Service laws, commonly known as the "Black Act" 
May 6, 1897. 

Reporton the Operation of the " Black Act." March 21, 1898. 

Annual Reports of the Civil Service Reform Association of New 
York for >83, '85, '86, '87, '88, '92, '93, '94, '95, »96, 

'97, '98 and '99. Per copy, fc cts. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



United States Civil-Service Statutes and Revised Rules of Slay 
6, 1896. 

Revised U. S. Civil Service Rules of May 29, 1899. 

State Civil-Service Reform Acts of New York and Massachu- 
setts. 

Decisions and Opinions in Construction of the Civil-Service Laws. 
(1890) Per copy, 15 cts. 

The Meaning of Civil-Service Reform* By E. O. Graves. 

The Selection of Laborers. (In English and German Editions). By 
James M. Bugbee late of the Massachusetts Civil- Service Commission. 

Report of Select Committee on Reform in the Civil Service 
(H. R.), regarding the registration of laborers in the United States 
Service. 

Report of same Committee regarding selection of Fourth-Class 
Postmasters. 

The Need of a Classified and Non-Partisan Census Bureau- 
Report of a Special Committee of the National League. (1898) 

George William Curtis. A commemoratire address by Parke Godwin. 
(Published by the Century Association). 10 cents per copy. 



(a charge is made only where the PRICE IS GrVEN.) 



Orders for the publications will be filled by George McAneny, Secre- 
tary, 54 William St., New York, or by G. P. Putnam's Sons, 27 and 29 West 
13d St, New York. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 021 596 9 



PRESIDENT: 

CARL SCHURZ. 



SECRETARY: 

GEORGE McANENY. 



TREASURER 

A. S. FRISSELL. 



VICE-PRESIDENTS 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, 
AUGUSTUS R. MACDONOUGH, 
RT. REV. HENRY C. POTTER, 
J. HALL PLEASANTS. 



HENRY HITCHCOCK, 
HENRY C. LEA, 
FRANKLIN MACYEAGH, 
RT. REV. P. J. RYAN, 



WILLIAM POTTS. 



EXECUTIVE 

WILLIAM A. AIKEN, 
CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, 
SILAS W. BURT, 
1DWARD CARY, i 
CHARLES COLLINS, 
LUCIUS B. SWIFT, 
RICHARD H. DANA, 
JOHN W. ELA, 
WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE, 
RICHARD WATSON GILDER, 

MORRILL 



COMMITTEE: 

HERBERT WELSH, 
WILLIAM G. LOW, 
DORMAN B. EATON, 
WILLIAM POTTS, 
CHARLES RICHARDSON, 
SHERMAN S. ROGERS, 
CARL SCHURZ, 
EDWARD M. SHEPARD, 
MOORFIELD STOREY, 
EVERETT P. WHEELER, 
WYMAN, JR. 



Office of the League, 

No. 54 William St., New York. 



